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Claws of Gix

Artifact

{1}, Sacrifice a permanent: You gain 1 life.

CMC
0
Mana cost
{0}
Color identity
C
Rarity
special
Set
Time Spiral Timeshifted
Price
$15.32
EDHREC rank
#6885
Buy on TCGplayer
Claws of Gix card art
Claws of Gix lets you sacrifice any permanent for free at instant speed — the activation costs nothing beyond the tap, which is the whole point. Decks like Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor that need cheap, repeatable sacrifice outlets treat it as a staple, and Yedora, Grave Gardener loops would be far clunkier without it.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

52.3% of decks · synergy 0.51

Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor needs a free outlet to sacrifice curses she moves onto opponents before they can benefit, and Claws of Gix fills that role at zero mana cost. The instant-speed tap means you can respond to triggers rather than commit at sorcery speed.

02
Fblthp, Lost on the Range

Fblthp, Lost on the Range

50.0% of decks · synergy 0.49

Fblthp, Lost on the Range builds around Adventures and plotting, so Claws of Gix provides a free way to cash out permanents that have already done their job and free up space for the next plot. A zero-mana activation slots cleanly into the tight mana sequencing those decks demand.

03
Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

22.2% of decks · synergy 0.22

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity taps artifacts for mana and filters, and Claws of Gix converts spent or redundant artifacts into life gain while keeping the sacrifice trigger chain alive. At zero activation cost it never competes with Meria's own mana demands.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Claws of Gix is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its real home is Commander. In Legacy and Vintage, dedicated sacrifice synergies have faster and more powerful dedicated outlets, so Claws of Gix rarely makes the cut in competitive builds. Modern is where it has the most theoretical relevance outside Commander — a colorless, free-activation sacrifice outlet is unusual — but it still sits on the fringe rather than in established archetypes. In Commander, the combination of zero activation cost, instant speed, and no color restriction makes Claws of Gix one of the most flexible sacrifice outlets available, and it earns a slot in any deck that needs to sacrifice permanents repeatedly without dedicating mana to it.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar both serve as sacrifice outlets but generate mana rather than life and aren't free activations in the same sense — they're better in many contexts but slot into a different role. If the specific appeal of Claws of Gix is the zero-mana instant-speed activation without any resource payment, Viscera Seer is the closest budget substitute, offering a free sacrifice on a creature body for under a dollar, though losing permanents other than creatures is a real functional downgrade.

Price Context

Current price

$15.32 mid tier

At $15.32, Claws of Gix sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion but not a chase card. It holds that price because free sacrifice outlets are structurally rare and demand is spread across multiple archetypes, so the floor is unlikely to collapse absent a wide reprint.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.